Interconnected Secrets
by treehuggingbran7
Summary: Aoshi and Misao displayed in several situations. Some of the chapters are related some aren't. Just our lovely couple in different eras and different circumstances. ADULT CONTENT starting in ch.4
1. The Most Unfortunate of Friendships

Disclaimer: I don't own, wish I did,but alas not all wishes come true. This is the installment of several stories. How much? I don't know. So enjoy and advance apologies for the horrible grammar. . I have no beta reader.

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It was the most unfortunate of friendships.

Something formed from the annoying habit of humans to form groups, to belong.

He was odd, quiet, and very reserved.

She was loud, giggly, and very expressive.

They were opposite forces waiting to crash into each other.

When he had first met her, he'd never expect her to be so… so … so loud.

Somehow a friendship was built, from his comments that would go unnoticed by everyone else but her, to her outlandish remarks. It embarrassed him to be with her but at the same time, it felt so good. He felt free.

There were things about her that kept fascinating him; it became a rather macabre obsession.

He was an observer and what he saw fascinated him. She was so free, so free with her love and so nice. It was a little eerie, and his morbid mind twisted her genuine love into something infested. He became sick.

She was falling for him, and it had to be said it wasn't his fault. She was always attracted to quiet guys. She always felt that they were overlooked, diamonds in the ruff. But he was something more to her; he was her friend, her very first friend. So she did the only thing she knew best, she doted on him.

This affection, it perturbed him, it kept him awake at night. He couldn't understand her and he couldn't see why she was so nice. He didn't like her, but he didn't want her to be with other guys either. He was always watching her and it devastated him to find out that she was equally nice to other guys.

They were so different but so very much alike, both were very stubborn, and both were slightly terrified by the other.

He made her anxious. She felt like she was constantly on her tiptoes and at any minute she could fly or fall perilously to her death. She was always out of breath when she was with him, he exhilarated her. She had finally met someone odder than her; she had in her mind - met her match.

It was a tragic thing – their friendship. Born out of a need instead of a want, it was tainted to begin with. There was not much to be said about it, except that it lived a little too long and had worn out its welcome.

They quickened its death with the growing silence and overgrown lies that they were feeding themselves.

It wouldn't be a clean death; this dying friendship would become cancerous. It would slowly invade the body and the mind. It would become infectious, sinful, and morbid.

They figured it would go away, the suffocating awkwardness, but as things that were malignant to begin with, it would proliferate and worsen until it killed one of them.

And as always, the girl would be the one to suffer, tomorrow for her would never seem as bright. For tomorrow is empty without him.

As for him, she becomes just a fading memory – nothing more. She becomes a ghost lurking in the depths of his mind. Perhaps tomorrow he will think of her, or not.

What a most unfortunate friendship.


	2. The Aftertaste of Love

Bitterness envelopes them.

She is lying out of her teeth.

He offers everything, everything but his heart.

There are short gasps on the other side of the phone. He doesn't hear them, and even if he does, he wouldn't ask why. It's not because he doesn't care – it's because he doesn't know why they are there.

There are breaks of silence, where the other yearns to tell the truth, to confess, to stand with their soul wide open and revealing. But neither takes up the opportunity- because rejection is the most feared.

He tells her half lies. He is too polite to outright deny her. He wonders why someone would still love him after all he has done to them. She wonders the same thing.

But she denies the truth as she denies the feelings in her heart. She loves him, this she knows. But what she doesn't know is if he loves her the same way, the same magnitude. She values their friendship too much to say anything. She fears losing him more than she does anything else.

He mumbles things under his breath. Little phrases that escape despite his control. Soon those muffled sentences become something of the past and silence becomes them more than any sound.

He wrongs her – dangles her on a string, even though he doesn't want to. When she tells him of other guys, he knows it is all a ploy and he feigns interest. It's alright to build a facade if it protects her. She makes excuses for him. She idolizes him, puts him on a pedestal, and she hides his flaws because she is frightened of the truth. If she chooses to outright acknowledge his apathy towards her, if she chooses to publicly recognize this indifference then perhaps it will be the death of something she has been trying to revive.

She knows he doesn't love her; never will, for he belongs to another.

At one point it had been fun for him, now it is something strained, useless and already too worn to be anything else. It had died even before it lived, whatever it was.

She doesn't listen to her friends, because she is beginning to believe in the excuses that she has made for him.

It's sad when she begins to believe in the fabricated stories that she tells.

Unrequited love is the worst kind of all. It leads the lover into thinking that there is a possibility, makes the lover think that she has a chance and then it kills her slowly, and chokes her with her own lies.

But the tragic thing is the lover will never know because deception is a weapon that this false love wields gracefully.

Once, he gave her some flowers. It was out of convenience, not much thought was put into it. He picked them off the cracked side walks on the way to her house.

She sees them and her heart floods with joy; she doesn't see the clumps of dirt still attached to them, and she doesn't see the aphids clinging to the petals, no to her these dandelions are roses.

He visits her later that week out of her pleading and request. His eyes scan the room and his heart falls silently into his chest. The flowers that were little more than weeds are still in vase, rotting against the windowsill. The petals have lost their luster, and the flowers are slightly rotting. For the first time he realizes how much she cares, and it pains him that his feelings for her are purely platonic.

She catches his eyes, and her mouth opens. But silence is all that comes out. She doesn't know how to excuse herself for her behavior.

"It's alright," he whispers.

She nods, and again somehow her love for him has shamed them both. It doesn't have to be this way, but it is.

He stands there, not even taking one step towards her, and he looks away

He leaves her, alone, again.

She walks over to the windowsill and fingers the petals, and one-by-one they fall. Her muffled cries shatter the silence. Those flowers were the only thing he has ever given her. It's not her fault that she wanted to keep something so sentimental.

She swears to herself this is the last time. But the heart rarely ever listens to the head.

She wonders if tomorrow she will feel different, if tomorrow she can ask him back for her heart.


	3. Meticulous searching to find nothing

I wrote this before finals. Not a good idea. I apologize for tense changes. I don't have the time to change them nor do I care really - this story is already too mutilated for me to salvage what I can from it. Enjoy what you can. constructive criticism is very much appreciated.

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Meticulous searching to find nothing.

It was her nature to be cautious, her father had once told her, "better safe than sorry," and it became something ingrained in her mind, a broken record playing over and over in her head.

She applied this mantra to everything in her life, but most of all she pertained it to her love life. Humans like animals learn to stay away from things that hurt them; however, in some cases animals are smarter than humans in this aspect.

She had been deceived by her fiancé. The most painful betrayals come from those who belong closest to the heart. Indeed the deepest circles of hell belong to those who deceive their loved ones.

What pained her most was that she trusted her fiancé, a trust she had rarely given to anyone else. A trust she had only given to one other after her father's death. It was hard to even think of his name, the way the syllables rolled on her tongue and eagerly spilled from her mouth. Aoshi, his name till this day runs chills down her spine. Aoshi and her fiancé were not very different from each for they had both betrayed her, in their own ways.

She could've forgiven him, not her fiancé. But him, yes, for him, she would have faced the onslaught of hell. She didn't know back then or even know if she has or have forgiven him. When she wakes up night drenched in her own sweat and a scream of despair is lodged in her throat, she hates him; however, on other nights when she dreams of his hand touching her in comfort – she smiles and she could drown in her own happiness.

His sins were laid out on the table, plain as daylight. He took no effort to hide him or to pretend to be some saint when he was truly not. As a matter of fact, his sins were his barrier to the world. Aoshi had long figured if people feared him because of the crimes he had committed, then finally people would leave him be, he would have his solitude.

But Misao wanted the opposite, she wanted to take his sins and make it hers. She wanted to love him for who he was - the monster and the human.

She had asked for too much.

She wondered why the things she cherished most always became lost.

He had walked out one day. It was raining, and she was busy at the grocery store. The thought of him leaving had crossed her mind, but she thought it was an unnecessary worry.

Uneasiness fell over her as she walked home in the drizzle, and she didn't really understand why she felt so nauseous. She had figured it was the melancholic weather that was affecting her. The lamps on the way to the apartment were flickering – it was just too depressing of a day to be out.

She could feel it – an odd swarming visceral feeling as she stepped into the darkened apartment. Then as her eyes spotted the neatly folded paper, her heart stopped. Perhaps he just went somewhere temporarily; perhaps he just left a note to tell her to turn of the oven or something. Her mind went over a thousand scenarios in her head, but the cruel voice in her head voiced the loudest and most likely event – he had left her for good this time.

She could still feel the crash of the grocery bag on the floor as she read his note and realized her greatest nightmare had become a reality. The milk soaked her shoes and the squishy sounds echoed through the empty apartment. It made her feel even colder and lonelier – she was a broken soul. She crumbled, and the broken shards from the milk bottle pierced her knees. Her cut stained the carpet a dull rust color, a reminder for years to come of his leaving. The stain that spoke a malicious truth every time she walked past it or glanced towards it – the truth that he had never loved her.

She remembered the hollow feeling in her chest. It wasn't pain, just a void, numb feeling. She wondered is this what the dead feel like. She wondered if tomorrow would ever come, and if it did, would she acknowledge it?

He had told her in one of their obscure conversations that if he ever chose to leave he would say goodbye.

She would have settled for goodbye.

Goodbye would have offered some kind of salve over heart. Goodbyes were temporary.

Even in the note, there was no goodbye, just a short explanation that he was leaving and not to look for him.

She realized later on, that no matter how much her fiancé hurt her, it would never- could never surmount to Aoshi's actions- the departure from her life, the cutting of ties without even a decent goodbye. Yet it was always so easy to forgive him, to give him a clean slate, cleanse his sins with her tears.

She tried to forget him by getting involved with her recently ex- fiancé but even her fiancé broke her heart. She wasn't hurt very much though; just embarrassed that he paid a woman for sex. She didn't really care; her heart never truly belonged to him anyways.

Once someone had asked her why she kept thinking and pursuing Aoshi, when it was clear that he did not return her affections.

She just answered, "Why do people love, why do they hate, why they feel? Because it is what separates us from the animals, because it is what makes us human, and Aoshi – he makes me feel …" she looks at the man and whispers , "… alive."


	4. The Reality of Tea

Disclaimer: I don't own. This chapter has ADULT CONTENT. DO NOT READ if you are under 18 or you're just not the lemon/lime type of reader. ADULT CONTENT WARNING!!!

ADULT CONTENT WARNING

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Tea.

So many days spent with tea. It seems almost impossible to irradicate the taste from his mouth. A swish and a swirl of it around his mouth and its gone. The warmth pervading through his every fiber. It's amazing how such a simple liquid could calm one's soul so much. He finishes his daily cup and he pushes it disdainfully aside – the cup useless without the liquid.

He looks up and mutters a thanks.

She disappears and won't come back until the next day. She never sits with him anymore. She never has time anymore.

"Aoshi- sama… are you okay?" She questioned him one day.

He looks up and sketches her face into his mind, he doesn't want to forget it – ever.

"Are you OKAY?" She questions him again and louder this time.

"No." He replies and unfolds his impossibly long legs and stands up. He overshadows her and looks down at her and walks away.

She is left dejected; her folded legs sprawl out in exasperation. A puppet without its strings, or a woman without her support – it is still the same posture.

She bends over and gathers what is the remnant of an everyday tradition - the tea, the whisk, the cup that he so ceremoniously pressed to his lips, the very things that are her last ties to him. It's no wonder that she has an unnatural attachment to such ordinary things.

That night, she hears his shallow breathing and she swallows her pride and climbs out of her bed and pushes her shoiji aside. She paces her way towards his screen door, and quietly pries it open.

It doesn't matter to her that her entering his room was extremely taboo, it doesn't matter to her that it could doubtlessly ruin her reputation, and it doesn't matter to her if he could possibly hate her afterwards.

She pauses before his bed. She's extremely surprised he hasn't awoken yet, and even further surprised by the fact that even in his sleep – he seems distraught.

It takes all of her courage for her to peel the blanket slightly back and place her hand on his bed for support as she climbs into with him.

She feels his languid body stiffen at the intruder. She hears his breathing quicken as he realizes it's her - Misao.

He yanks back the blanket and shuffles his way into a sitting position. His eyes wide and his nostrils flaring. Gaping at her and her disheveled appearance, he is unsurprisingly speechless.

"Misao, what are you doing here?!" The words seething out of his mouth.

She doesn't answer him. She pulls the blanket down and nudges him back into a laying position.

He is too shocked to move on his own accord.

"Misao, you shouldn't be here, it is improper. Get out."

The whisper sounding harsh against the silence, it almost brings Misao to tears.

"Please stop. Please stop this." She croaks, her eyes rimmed with tears.

"Please stop all of this Aoshi. Please I can't take it any longer. If you are no longer satisfied by staying here then leave. I don't want to bind you to ties that you've never felt. I don't want you to stay here if it kills you, if it is suffocating you. Don't stay here because you think it'll kill me – because honestly you can't kill what's already dead. So please stop."

"Already dead?" He questions her, his mind slightly fearing what she had to say.

"I've turned to dust Aoshi, haven't you noticed?"

"Turned to dust?"

"Turned into dust, I've nothing but ashes to offer you and you didn't even want me when I was whole, how could you ever love me when I've turned into something less?"

"You're not anything less. I don't understand Misao. You just need to go back to your own bed and sleep and you'll feel better."

She looks at him, and leans into him, and whispers to him, "If I leave this bed, I'll disperse into the winds, there are no more ties here for me Aoshi. There is nothing for me to live for; all I've wanted is gone. "

Her lips barely inches away from his ears as she mutters, "Gone" again and again into his ears.

It was certainly not a threat, just an honest confession.

"Have I done this to you? Have I made you this way?"

There is no response to his question, and silence lays over them like a suffocating blanket. He already knows the answer and she doesn't reply because she knows that he already knows the answer to his question. A response would've have been rude, a response would've crushed him.

She lies next to him and wishes him a good night.

He was pinned to corner; he couldn't do anything but sleep.

He wakes up the next day to find her gone.

He'll never tell her that when she slept next to him, he didn't have nightmares. He would die before he told her that it was his first peaceful sleep in more than a decade.

He dresses in a simple yukata and walks to the temple. Just because she slept with him last night didn't mean that his everyday routine would be broken.

He meditates for hours before he hears the footsteps of Misao.

She smiles at him, and settles herself into their tradition. They were both animals of habits.

He wishes he could speak to her about last night, how it can't happen again, how it must not happen again – but nothing comes out but a thanks .

The cup is released from his lips. He is done and she gathers the things to leave.

Is it too selfish of him to ask for one more night of peace? Two nights of sleep where the demons didn't visit him, two nights of a torment- less sleep among a decade of nights spent in chaos was all he was asking for.

That night, she did the same thing she did before. She peeled back his blanket and crawls into bed with him.

He doesn't stiffen this time and he doesn't say a single word.

He just sleeps because she'll protect him from his demons, because she's right next to him.

It's not too much to ask for – two nights. Two nights were doable, and he wonders in his sleep if three nights would be pushing it, and he wonders if eternity would be just too much, if forever was too rude and selfish to ask for.

Misao smiles in her sleep, and Aoshi doesn't know – he doesn't know what this is doing for her.

She hasn't slept well since the years when she was still a child. She hasn't had rest in her days or nights.

She can't ask him for too much though. She can't ask for what he can't give. She can't ask anymore because he's already a broken man – asking for anything else will leave him hollowed out.

The next day she offers him his tea.

He relishes the taste, a bitterness that awakes him to reality.

"Aoshi, I apologize for the intrusion."

He places his cup down, a silent signal of his finishing, of the ending of their routine.

She doesn't crawl into his bed that night, and he is left again to face his tormentors. His bed is cold and he sleeps fitfully.

The day after that night, she returns to her muted conversation. They both act like nothing has happened.

Her eyes are shallow and there are telltale signs of bags under her eyes.

She doesn't tell him that she didn't sleep a wink last night, but of course, she never tells him anything anymore.

The night after that night, and that night after that night – he remains alone, alone with his demons. Night after night are added onto an already growing number of sleepless nights.

Several of weeks have passed and not one word is exchange between them.

Then the tradition is broken one late evening.

He realizes Misao has not yet come to serve him his tea. The routine was broken. She arrives an hour late huffing and puffing. Her eyes red from what he could only guess as tears. She doesn't explain to him what was wrong and he doesn't ask.

It's not his business.

She doesn't belong to him.

She serves him tea, hands shaking from anger and she almost spills her tea. She waits impatiently as he finishes the last drop of tea and whisks her material away. Her hair flying as she rushes from the temple. Her feet caring her with as much urgency as it could with tray full of pottery.

He finds out later that night from Okon that Misao has retired early because Okina has upset her by mentioning an arranged marriage.

Okina looks at Aoshi for a response, but Okina is awarded with nothing.

Stoic as ever, even when something was being taken away from him – even as his soul was being stolen from him.

No more peaceful nights ever if Misao left.

No more solace.

No more of anything.

He walks upstairs and lies in his bed fully clothed. He has already begun to waste away.

Later that night Misao lets a terrified but small shriek. But a hand clamps her mouth and the scream dies in her throat.

"Misao, it's me." The intruder whispers into her ear – the same way she had done for him.

"Forgive me. I came to ask you if you could offer me something."

She doesn't respond because she doesn't know how to.

"I was wondering if it would be alright to stay here, just tonight."

She looks at him and silently nods and reaches over to cover him with a blanket only to realize that Aoshi is completely naked.

Not a stitch of thread is on his skin.

Her hand pauses and hovers above him.

He reaches over to her and whispers into her ear, "It's okay to touch."

Her delight grows unfettered.

She traces light patterns over his chest until her hands rests slightly above his pubic bone.

She looks at him and his eyes are shut and he grimaced as she started making circles around his pubic bone.

"Please Misao. Please."

She smiles, and reaches down for him.

He's hard and yet so warm and soft. Her hands are overfilled with him. She is speechless.

She licks her lips.

This is a dream she tells herself, but then again she only dreams of nightmares – and this is

definitely not a nightmare.

He grunts as she tightens her hold as she glides her hand along his length.

A sticky substance begins to leak from his tip.

She places her index finger and rubs the tip collecting the substance and placing it inside her mouth.

Aoshi stares at her.

He gapes at her.

He is dumbfounded.

He has never seen a more provocative or sensual image and what happens next causes him to moan out loud.

Misao bends down and places her hot and wet mouth on his tip and swallows him.

He is lusting and loving and everything in between. He is torn from the inside out. He couldn't believe she was doing this. He wonders if she's ever done it for anyone else. He wonders who she learned this from.

His pleasure gives her pleasure. She is delighted to find that such a strong man would ever bend to her will.

He places his large hands on shoulders and closes his eyes.

His mouth parts to let out deep sighs. Misao hands continued to glide to wear her mouth couldn't reach. He was impossibly big and thick. She only hopes that he is satisfied.

She wants to sate him to make him forget his sins. She wants him to remember nothing but the feel of her lips against him. She wants this moment ingrained in his memory.

She just wants him to think of her.

Her tongue adds pressure and he groans as her tongue flicks against the slit of his cock and he is gone.

She feels him bursting her mouth and swallows because it's his and because it tastes like him.

Her name rolls of his lips and the syllables sound melodious. His sins turn to ash and dust and they're absolved. His demons have left him and he is detoxified.

She slides his length out of her mouth and he pulls her up with his big hands and squeezes her petite body against his.

His nose buried in her hair. Her face is in the crock of his neck.

Nothing matters now. Nothing.

He cups her chin and looks into her eyes and kisses her slowly. It is a kiss that offers love and growth in a place that was once desolate and barren.

He tastes himself in her – this brings him an unwarranted amount of pleasure.

He looks at her imploringly and fingers the material of her nightshirt and begins to lift it up but her hand clasps over his, stopping the movement.

She reaches over to him and whispers, "No. Not tonight. Tonight is for you and you only.

Tonight we will defeat your demons together. Please let me do this for you – let me be your salvation."

He nods at her. What else can he do for his tongue is tied and his heart is inundated with emotions and his brain is clouded?

He is overwhelmed by her selflessness.

He wonders how he has resisted her as long as he has.

Misao trails wet kisses down his chest and her hand fondles him, delighted that he is already thick and erect for her.

He feels the curvature of her smile on his abdomen and that is the last thing he remembers before Misao places her mouth on his length again.

Tomorrow he promises, tomorrow he will tell her everything.

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Well, hope you guys enjoyed it. I wanted to do a full blown lemon, but I don't want to get kicked off and I don't know where I could post my work if it is a lemon, so alas I opted for something less, something much less. I am fairly happy with what I did. I do apologize for the tense changes. Constructive criticism is very happily received! 


	5. Incurable Disease

Disclaimer: I hope you all know that these stories are not connected in any way. I had someone ask me why there was a telephone in the Meiji Era... Well... umm first off the telephone WAS produced in the late 1800s but yeah I get your drift. Again the stories are not connected and certainly this one is not in any way related to the others. I don't own or else I wouldn't be writing it here on Enjoy.

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There were whispers amongst them.

What a tragic death it had been. So very young, what a pity the villagers thought.

It had happened in the middle of the night, a thief had snuck in and stolen something more valuable than what he had been originally looking for. At least there was no cry of pain or anguish, just a swift death.

"He was sick, unconscious, or he would've defended himself for sure."

"Of course, that fact is undeniable."

"Yes, he was so handsome. So very handsome."

"Have you seen the poor girl that followed him? Poor thing, so madly in love. Didn't even see it coming."

"She's young! Of course, she couldn't have known what would happen. None of us did! But surely she knew he was going to die sometime, I mean look at the life that he led, surely she must have."

"I wonder what's she going to do now. She'll hopefully stop gallivanting around this town and settle down with a nice boy. I heard Nishiazawa's son is after her. "

Gone.

He was gone.

Never once did he say goodbye either time. Never a goodbye, he had just left her to find out what had occurred in the morning. Always the morning after. Gone, and this time forever.

Forever, the word seemed so imminent.

Forever, she couldn't grasp it in her mind.

She had become an insomniac after the incident. Sleep was too comforting. Her life was a for a better lack of words - empty. No more purpose, no more hope. A sense of resignation. Defeat.

What a dishonorable death, death by cowardice. Death by the hands of a thief. He deserved better.

His ashes were strewn into the wind. Some blew into her eyes , stinging them and her eyes watered. Those were the only tears that came from her eyes.

If he had loved her she'd never know, and that is what killed her. The never knowing.

So brief was their time together. A puzzle half finished and a love unrequited.

She looked up into the sky, it was ominous. She looked around, they were all gone - seeking comfort from within the Aoiya. She looked at the urn in her hand and realized that this is what she'd been reduced to - she'd unknowingly become the ash bearer.

It was ironic because he was an Aquarius - a water bearer - the bringer of life. She silently wondered - had she condemned to his death even before the thief had stolen it?

He had left her wanting. Curiosity seeped through her very being. A question of whether she had been his undoing. He had left her answerless. He was silent, always so silent. Even gone - he had managed to destroy her .

Even in death, he had left her an incurable human disease.


End file.
